Being right or being motivated: The effects of the impact bias on the pursuit and persistence of activities

People often predict that their affective reactions to events will be more intense than their reactions actually are, a phenomenon known as the impact bias. People can overcome this bias by thinking about activities other than the event, but the impact bias may be desirable if it influences motivation. The present research investigated if this bias influences motivation to persist at tasks related to the current goal or to pursue tasks unrelated to the current goal. In Study l, participants were provided the goal of taking a test and then asked to predict their affect if they were to do well or poorly. The experimenter attempted to reduce predicted affect intensity by first having half of participants think about other activities, and the motivation to persist at the current goal was measured. Study 2 replicated Study l, but instead motivation to pursue goals unrelated to the current task was measured. Though the impact bias failed to emerge in these studies, results suggested that thinking about the other activities caused people to persist at studying for the test more than thinking only about the test. Likewise, the results suggested that thinking only about the test caused people to want to pursue other activities more than thinking about other activities. Self-affirmation, goal shielding, and reactance theories are discussed as possible explanations for the present results.